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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but why limit this to tech companies? Let's also apply this to banks, landlords, governments, grocery chains, and employers in general.

Why should I not get the best wages, negotiated employment agreement, interest rates, lease terms, and deal with the IRS on taxes that I really don't want to pay as my most successful peer?

Banks bend over backwards for their VIP customers, why shouldn't they do the same for me?

My neighbours didn't get a rent increase this month because my landlord likes them, why should I have to negotiate for getting the same thing?

Bill on my team got a 30% bonus this year, I also want a 30% bonus... And would love to see this sort of thing codified in law.

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You snark, but legally preventing banks from offering better rates to favored clients would probably be a good thing for society and the banks themselves. After all, plenty of charming and well liked clients have turned out to be terrible credit risks.

Favored clients in this case aren't slick guys in a suit, I'm talking about people who want the bank to manage billions of dollars for them, as compared to me and my shitty savings account that may or may not have any money in it.

Credit scores are a very good thing. Someone who pays their bills on time shouldn’t have to pay the same rate as someone who always skips the bill, and without them, every loan would have 10% interest at least, even for mortgages

The concept is fine. The implementation is garbage (in the US), and insufficiently transparent.

"but why limit.. " assumes we do things in an absolute manner. But we don't. All rules and regulations are arbitrary to an extent. We have different rules depending on the situation, the entity, etc. We get to pick and choose the rules that we think will benefit society the most.

Might be too broad. Especially as the scale gets smaller I think that non-quantitative aspects can reasonably affect who you want to do business with. For example, if I'm annoying and rude to my local mechanic and he starts charging me extra to deal with my bullshit I don't really see a problem with that.

There does start to be a problem however if he's the only mechanic in town or if he charges more or less based on race or some other protected class.

I think it's a very hard in general to find the balance on problems like this one, and I don't expect you can come up with a one size fits all rule.

Having this requirement when dealing with tech monopolies is uniquely helpful because in some cases there is no alternative. We can always rent, shop or bank other places. I'd argue where there isn't a thriving marketplace of choice monopolies should have to have the same rules with all their partners.

You can always use other software as well. The only reason HN believe Apple to be a monopoly is because the product they purchased does what it was advertised to do - security through chain of trust via an good-but-imperfect organization. It's only a legal monopoly if the courts say so, and the judge in Epic v Apple defined the market in a way that actually made sense - they aren't a monopoly on mobile game purchases, but they did took anticompetitive actions in that market to stifle competition.

> I'd argue where there isn't a thriving marketplace of choice monopolies should have to have the same rules with all their partners.

They can't have a monopoly on iPhones because the iPhone isn't a market - it's a device where the App Store is the killer feature. There are other products you can buy that compete with the iPhone and its app store.

Apple as of years ago was capturing over 90% of all the margin in smartphones (https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/23/apple-captures-record-91-per...). I'd argue that represents a monopoly in paid smartphones. Our option as users is either buy a phone from Apple or accept what is essentially a free service from Google (you have to buy the hardware)... who are giving that away to solidify their search monopoly. This to me doesn't represent a thriving marketplace of user choice.

90% of global smartphone profits does not mean 90% of devices in the market. It's been demonstrated for years that iPhone users are much more likely to pay for apps. It's possible to be extremely profitable and not have a monopoly on the market because the iPhone isn't just an appliance but a Veblen good as well.

It does however mean Apple has significant market power. Almost by definition: in a very counterfactual perfectly competitive smartphone market, everyone sells at cost and there aren't any profits. Reducing it to monopoly vs. not-a-monopoly is drawing too bright a line.

And I don't really think iPhones are a Veblen good exactly. Targeted at higher-income buyers? Yes. Valued as much for design as aesthetics? Absolutely. But pretty sure a $500 iPhone would outsell an otherwise-identical $800 iPhone, nevertheless.

I agree with everything you just said but without the irony.

Any of those a monopoly?

Technically or reasonably speaking?

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